Looking for the Light
by starheart20
Summary: A serious of songfics from different POV's about the events of GOF - Chapter 2 - Prof. McGonagall looks back on her life and the sacrifices she has made
1. In The End

**In The End**   
  
_(It starts with)_

October 31st, Halloween, trick-or-treat day (as my little Muggle cousin calls it), however you want to call it this day is one of the most important days in the Wizarding world.  

1981 and after that year, there was going to be another meaning to that special day, another name for the 31st day of the tenth month and all because of a small boy who was orphaned with the most spectacular consequences.  It was all a bit haphazard what happened, rather accidental but still everyone worships that boy because of that curse that went wrong, the curse the killed its caster not its intended recipient.  And for that reason we now have Harry Potter Day - another reason to celebrate today, another excuse for a party.  

I don't feel like a party, I know the boy behind the stories, the truth behind the rumours - the hurt he has suffered, the atrocities he has seen and the hidden guilt he carries inside.

He's just a normal boy and he hurts - just like me.

  
_One thing _

_ I don't know why  
It doesn't even matter how hard you try_

In June, I lost my boyfriend.  It wasn't Harry's fault, but I know he blames himself.  I try to block the pain I feel, to remember the good times with Ced, not the hurt that has engulfed me in the months that have followed his passing, the grief that made me feel I was drowning.

It's been more then four months now and most of the time I do a good job of it too.  Everyone, even my closest friends and family are fooled by the façade that I keep up, the mask that hides the real me.

_  
Keep that in mind_

_ I designed this rhyme  
To explain in due time  
All I know_

I used to spend all of my time cooped up here in the library after it happened.  My friends were great - to start with - but then they thought, enough time had passed and I should get a new boyfriend, move on with my life.  So, this diary and the library became my life.  I couldn't even face and enchanted diary, a magical diary when I first started journaling as a way of dealing with the pain.  Not after remembering what happened to Ginny Weasley in my third year when she used an enchanted one - what that monster did to her brings back memories of what he did to Cedric and the horrible times that followed.  So a good old-fashioned muggle notebook it was.

Hour upon hour I spent sitting in this cosy window seat scribbling all my pain and hurt down into words that stare bleakly back at me from the paper, but which somehow lessen the hurt I feel inside.  

Dumbledore had told us during the leaving feast last year that we had to remember; we had to remember Cedric and what he had died for.  Well, that wasn't hard for me, he was my boyfriend, my first love and when I heard he was dead, I felt my heartbreak and a little part of me died too.  But this journal, it was my way of making sure that I remembered every little detail and that other people remembered too.  This was meant to be my record of the great injustice I had suffered, the crappy hand that fate dealt me, there for any one who wanted to read it in the future - a sure fire guide for how not to mess up your life, but instead it turned into a way to heal, a story of friendship and of inner strength.

_  
Time is a valuable thing  
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings  
Watch it count down to the end of the day  
The clock ticks life away  
It's so unreal_

I never realised how precious time was, every meal we shared, walking to class - those were moments to be savoured.  How much do I regret wishing away the time, wishing we could be doing something more fun?  Sure, the time we spent in the astronomy tower was enjoyable and an unmissable part of any relationship here at Hogwarts - but even when we couldn't be there because we were serving detention with Filch after being caught out of bounds - we were together, that's what is important, that's what matters!  

_  
Didn't look out below  
Watch the time go right out the window  
Trying to hold on_

_But didn't even know  
Wasted it all just to  
Watch you go_

Now I make the most of every minute I spend with people - with the people I used to call friends and the people that have shown me the true meaning of friendship.  I make sure to show how much they mean to me; how much I enjoy every minute we spend together.

_  
I kept everything inside and even though I tried _

_ It all fell apart  
what it meant to me_

_Will eventually _

_Be a memory_

_ Of a time when I tried  
so hard  
  
_

The things that didn't matter in the grand scheme of things we put so much effort into; the things that don't seem worthwhile are the things that do matter, that we should work for and put effort into but somehow it feels guilty and so we don't do it and miss out on so many chances.  Well not me, not anymore.  A lesson I have learnt the hard way and which I try to teach everyone I know.

_  
And got so far  
But in the end  
It doesn't even matter  
I had to fall  
To lose it all  
But in the end  
It doesn't even matter  
  
_

I was the Seeker for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team for years, aiming to be the next captain.  I loved the adoration I got for being part of the team, for being the seeker the one who won the games, the one who ended the games, who everyone relied on.  

I lost it though.  One stupid mistake, a silly moment when I let the grief take over and I was off the Quidditch team, like that.  

They had me on suicide watch immediately after the third task.  Days on end when I barely got left alone checked on every ten minutes, no privacy, no time to grieve without someone there, making me feel that they were judging me for crying.  

Eventually Dumbledore called me into his office and said that they felt enough time had passed and I had regained my control and that they would end the suicide watch and allow me to return to my dormitory for the last few nights of the term but that if I should ever want to talk in the future, he or any member of the staff would be a willing ear.

So the other members of the Team decided that a great way to spend the last day of term would be to go down to the newly reclaimed Quidditch pitch and have a bit of a free-for-all, not a practice as such; more of a fun way to get back into flying.

Fun.  Yeah, going back to the same place where five days before I had seen my boyfriend's body lying lifeless on the grass really was the most fun I've ever had.  So much fun that I lost it and couldn't face the hurt anymore; the flashbacks were too intense and all I wanted was for the pain to end.

Going for my first ever Wronski Feint and not pulling out of the dive seemed like such a good idea at the time.  It would all be over with; I wouldn't have to feel like this anymore - that was all I cared about.  That little stunt didn't quite have the required outcome though.  Madam Hooch had been watching from the sidelines hidden under the Headmaster's invisibility cloak, obviously they hadn't quite taken me off of suicide watch after all.

Another trip to Dumbledore's office followed.  A "chat" with him, Madam Hooch and Professor Flitwick later and I was off the Quidditch team permanently.  

I didn't enjoy the sport though.  Sure, I liked to fly but not to play Quidditch.  I just enjoyed the power being on the team gave me, I didn't enjoy the sport.  I realised that as I watched Padma Patil playing seeker in our first game of the year.  Saw her up their looking like she belonged there and realised that she deserved it much more then I ever did, simply because it is her _dream_...

_  
One thing _

_ I don't know why  
It doesn't even matter how hard you try  
Keep that in mind _

_I designed this rhyme  
To remind myself how  
I tried so hard  
In spite of the way you were mocking me  
Acting like I was part of your property  
Remembering all the times you fought with me  
I'm surprised it got so (far) _

The other Ravenclaw's used to think they owned me; I was their Seeker!  Except, I wasn't anymore; I was someone who had been removed from the team for an unknown reason, someone to be avoided.

I can't believe it took so long for someone other then the teachers to realise that I was hurting, for me to admit that I needed help and that more then that I needed a friend.

Only one month ago I was still sitting there alone in the Library with only my diary for company.  Sitting there wishing that I could be with Cedric again, even if I had to die for that to happen, I would willingly have died if only to no longer be alone...

_  
Things aren't the way they were before  
You wouldn't even recognize me anymore  
Not that you knew me back then  
But it all comes back to me  
In the end_

I'm not the girl that I was before.  I'm me.  I'm the real Cho Chang, not the girl who was pretending, the girl who just wanted to be popular and go out with the most popular boy in school, the girl everyone wanted to be with - the Quidditch captain and Triwizard champion Cedric Diggory.

That's not to say that I wasn't the real Cho then too, just that she was weaker, hidden a little bit so that I could give in to the peer pressure and conform to society's idea of what I should be, not what I was.

_  
You kept everything inside and even though I tried _

_ it all fell apart  
What it meant to me _

_ will eventually _

_ be a memory_

_of a time when I  
I tried so hard  
  
_

I really did try to get over Cedric, but it wasn't good enough for my so-called friends, didn't happen quick enough.  I suppose in a way its my own fault, I did push them away while I was with Cedric so we could spend more time together.  I didn't abandon them completely though.  Was it really so wrong of me to think they would be there for me, that we were still friends?  I know most normal fifteen year olds don't have to help their friend deal with the death of her boyfriend, but did they have to abandon me?

_  
And got so far  
But in the end  
It doesn't even matter  
I had to fall  
To lose it all  
But in the end  
It doesn't even matter_

What I lost isn't what's important.  I've found what matters.  I've found myself.

_  
  
I've put my trust in you  
Pushed as far as I can go  
And for all this  
There's only one thing you should know  
I've put my trust in you  
Pushed as far as I can go  
And for all this_

I really put my whole trust in Cedric, made him my whole life and knew that he would never leave me.  Except, he did leave me, didn't he?  He didn't do it deliberately and would never have done so deliberately, deep down I know that but still somehow it is hard to accept that and not to be mad at him for abandoning me; leaving me alone to deal with the pain, to somehow try to face life without him by my side.  

To begin with all I wanted was to die, to end the hurt and the suffering and to be with my champion once more.

_  
There's only one thing you should know  
I tried so hard  
And got so far  
But in the end  
It doesn't even matter  
I had to fall  
To lose it all_

I've lost Cedric, my first true love, the boy I thought I would spend the rest of my life with and whilst that is important, its **not** important.  What matters here are all of the lessons I've learnt over the last four months.  I've learnt about strength.  About the strength that I possess inside, who the real Cho is and how much strength she possesses.  But what I've also learnt is about friendship and the strength it can provide.

Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley - before all of this happened I didn't know them.  Well, sure I did know them but I didn't _know_ them, know them.  Ginny and Ron with that unmistakable Weasley Red Hair, who could miss them?  Hermione, the know it all, top of her class muggle born witch who could miss her?  Then there was Harry - he was the Boy-Who-Lived, the other Hogwarts champion who stole the glory away from Cedric, the irritating little boy with the embarrassing crush on me.  That's all they were, they weren't people to me…

_  
But in the end  
It doesn't even matter_

Now? Now they're my friends and I don't know what I'd do without them.


	2. I Don't Want To Wait

I don't want to wait for our lives to be over,  
I want to know right now what will it be.  
I don't want to wait for our lives to be over,  
Will it be yes or will it be sorry?  
  


These are hard times that the wizarding world is going through at the moment.  Hard for everyone even though some people like to pretend its not.   Some other people like to pretend the reason isn't what it really is.  That makes it even harder for those who do accept the truth.  

For when the person who won't accept it is Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic it makes it even harder then it already is, increases the battles that have to be fought and won before anything important and essential in the real fight can be undertaken.  And when you're me its worse then it would seem.

Every member of the Order of the Phoenix sees me as a Hogwarts teacher, a spinster and the deputy Headmistress of the school.  They see the tabby cat animagus and the stern faced transfiguration professor with her hair always pulled back in a bun.  

They miss the young woman with a daughter and a son who lost her daughter and so nearly lost her son too during the war with Grindelwald and then couldn't get pregnant again, no matter what she tried.  They miss the battles I faced when I looked at my son whilst he was at Hogwarts and couldn't admit that he was my son, had to pretend he was just another student of no more concern to me then any of the others in his year.  

The young bride who was so full of hope on her wedding day and could only share it with her parents and one friend was another thing they missed and still to this day nobody outside the inner circle knows.

They know me as Minerva, or Professor McGonagall, they know my persona, the mask I show the outside world.  They don't know the real woman I am on the inside; they don't know my real name.

I did used to be Minerva McGonagall, that's true.  For the last fifty years, though, I've been taking part in something of a masquerade.  May 1941 I got married.  It's something of a shock I know but now it's time the truth came out.  For the past fifty years I've been Mrs. Albus Dumbledore but only in secret, only when we are alone.

So open up your morning light,  
And say a little prayer for I.

The terror felt during the very first Light versus Dark war was unbelievable.  No one who lived through it can ever understand it and I pray every night that none of the bright young faces smiling up at me from the desks in my classroom on a daily basis ever have to find out.

We used to pray every night before we went to bed that we would wake in the morning safe and well, that there would be no stealth attack in the night.  I used to be paralysed with fear at the thought that one morning I might wake and find his arms weren't around me any more.

Then it happened.  One morning I woke up alone, the other side of the bed was empty and cold too.  

Terror gripped me from the bottom of my soul.  I couldn't move, couldn't think, could hardly even breathe I was so scared.  

I really don't know how long it was I lay there thinking it was over and I would never see my one true love again.  It may just have been seconds or minutes but it felt like hours, no days, had passed before I saw a familiar glint of red and those lovely blue eyes which should be mischievous but which had been dulled by the trials of life and so had lost their spark.

Tears streamed down my face, tears of relief and of joy all at the same time.  He put his arms around me and held me.  I pulled him closer and wished we could stay like that forever.

  
you know that if we are to stay alive.  
  


Finally the day came; the day when my darling Albus triumphed over the evil he had lost years fighting.  That was such a joyous, joyous day.  

It was a bit of a culture shock too though having to come to terms with the fact that we were no longer in mortal danger every minute of every day, no longer having to second guess each move we made and look over our shoulders the whole time for something which may never come.

There's more to surviving then just staying alive though, that's a lesson I was to quickly learn.  

There was something not quite right about my husband, it was almost as if he didn't know what to do with himself.  He couldn't adjust to living in peacetime after being at war for so long.

It was the same for everyone, mothers had to learn to let go of their children and the children had to learn how to play for the first time in their lives, to try to reclaim the childhood they had lost. 

Then see the peace in every eye.  
  


It took a while, but we got there.  The first Christmas after the defeat I had good news to share with my beloved, the news we had dreamed of.  I was pregnant.  

Albus was so happy, happier then I had seen him in a long time and standing there at the service of thanksgiving to mark the first peacetime Christmas in five years seeing the relieved looks on the faces of every one we knew and loved I realised we had turned the corner.  We were going to have a proper family life from now on.

  
**_She had two babies. One was six months, one was three  
In the war of '44._**

Guess I had spoken too soon when I promised Albus a normal family life, that Christmas so many years ago.  We never did get it.  

The problem with being married to such a well-known and famous wizard is that well-known and famous wizard's tend to have enemies.  And when the aforementioned well-known and famous wizard is Albus Dumbledore, Order of Merlin first class, the one to defeat the dark lord Grindelwald, the danger these enemies can pose is even greater.  

So our marriage had to remain a secret, the birth of our daughter followed two years later by the birth of our second child, a son, was not a cause for family celebration.  Only ourselves and a few of the inner circle knew that the two children known as "Smith" who appeared to have no family actually had loving parents and should be known by their rightful surname – Dumbledore.

**_Every telephone ring, every heartbeat stinging_**

****

For a few short years, we were happy.  Those were wonderful, wonderful times.  The simplest thing would put a smile on my face that wouldn't leave for days.  Family picnics, my daughter telling me she loved me, they were special but it is only now she is gone that I realise just how special they were.

  
**_When she thought it was God calling her._**

Then the greatest personal tragedy of my life happened and just as has happened during all the key moments of my life, our marriage, our children's lives, I had to deal with it alone.  Albus had had to go deal with the uprising of some sort of dark force somewhere or other, time and the tragedies that time has wrought upon us.

It started so simply.  Alice came in one morning and said she didn't feel well.  It just seemed like a simple cold, I was sure that was all it was.  Lots of sleep, lots of fluids and some good food and lots of tender loving care from mummy and she would be fine.  

Except she wasn't.  One minute it was just flu, a few days and my baby girl would be running around with her brother again, the next she collapsed in my arms.

Eight hours later my darling Alice was dead.

I fell apart, lost it completely.  I was crying and sobbing, begging the doctor to do something, anything to save her – couldn't accept that she was gone.

Then I realised what had happened, realised I would never see my baby again – a realisation I couldn't cope with.  And so I did it, tried to kill myself.  Or I would have had it not been for Nicholas Flamel and his wife Perenelle.  Those dear, dear friends of Albus and mine obviously knew me too well.  For only they managed to predict exactly where I had gone and what I planned to do when I disappeared the day after Alice's death.  

They tried to talk me out of it but couldn't so in the end they resorted to drastic measure, magically bound me so I couldn't use my powers and kept me with them, checking on me every ten minutes and never leaving me alone.

Even now, years later I have no recollection of exactly what happened in the days that followed, all I know is that I got through it somehow and eventually accepted the hand that life had dealt me.  It took a while but I managed to convince Nicholas and Perenelle that I could cope by myself and myself and my son Mark went back to our home and tried to rebuild our lives – without Alice and for the time being, without Albus either.

  
**_Oh would her son grow to know his father?_**

He was gone for years on end.  Years when I never knew where he was, if he would ever return to our son and me.

He hadn't been there when our daughter died, had missed the chance to say goodbye to his baby girl and it was beginning to look like he would return home to one child dead and another who had no clue who he was.  

There was no way for a sixth month old baby to remember the father who loved him, who rocked him to sleep and fed him Muggle sweets.  And he wasn't that baby anymore he was a boisterous four-year-old who needed a father figure, needed more discipline then his softhearted mother could provide.  Yet there were times when I thought that I would never have survived or have got through the trials thrown at me if it hadn't been for there.  If my little boy hadn't been there smiling up at me with his cheeky grin, I could very well have given into the darkness that tugged at my soul that called at me to let it envelop me.

  
  
**_I don't want to wait for our lives to be over,  
I want to know right now what will it be._**

We got our lives back to how they were after the first war eventually Albus but it took years, even after he returned.  We've still never had the chance to have that life we dreamed of though.  The life where our marriage was common knowledge, where we could show our love for each other in public and celebrate it with our friends.  The life where I too answer when students call out for Professor Dumbledore.  That's been my name for the last fifty years – Minerva Dumbledore but I've never had the chance to answer it for no one has ever called me by it.

  
**_I don't want to wait for our lives to be over,  
Will it be yes or will it be sorry?  
  
_**

Regrets are a horrible thing aren't they?  I know we have had our life together, we have our relationship and together we are stronger then we are apart.  You know that too.  I just wish the rest of the world knew that too.  I don't want to be at your funeral Albus and nobody there knew we were ever married.

We're both getting older now, neither of us has as long left as we would like, lets face it.  Even if weweren't the fact still remains that we are at war and these are dangerous times – anything could happen.

The only thing I want now though, _the only thing I want_ is not to be sorry.  I want to be able to look back on my life with no regrets and this is the only one I've got left.

  
**_He showed up all wet on the rainy front step._**

****

One day a long time after Alice's death, a very rainy day when my son did nothing but moan about the fact he couldn't go outside, I got another shock.  But this one was a happy one!  Albus was home; my beloved husband was back with his family at last.

  
Wearing shrapnel in his skin.

He was injured, both physically and mentally.  He was there, though, and that was all that mattered.  

Yes he had curse scars that would never heal but those marks didn't matter to me – it was just a pleasure to have my beloved back with me.  Yes he had nightmares, woke screaming and crying every night, but that got better.  It never stopped completely, but it did get better.  That too never bothered me.  All I cared about was the fact that he was there, that he was with me once again.

  
**_And the war he saw lives inside him still,  
It's so hard to be gentle and warm._**

It is hard for him, but I don't think anyone else realises sometimes.  They see the laughing and joking, sweet eating headmaster of Hogwarts and don't realise that whilst that is him most of the time, it as also an act.

Just lately, it is an act.  Just lately, the nightmares are back.  I defy anyone to see what he's seen, do what he's done and not suffer like he has for the rest of his or her life.  Especially when you know you're going to have to do it all over again.

  
**_The years pass by and now he has granddaughters  
  
_**

Yes, I am a grandmother.  Mark's daughters Alice (named after his beloved sister who died too soon) and Minerva (the only clue she is my granddaughter is her name, no one ever notices the family resemblance) are 15 and 12 years old respectively; I teach them just as I taught their older brother without anyone knowing that I am any more than their head of house.  Just as I taught their father and never let on that I was his mother.

  
**_I don't want to wait for our lives to be over,_**

We've been waiting long enough, we've missed out on too much.

  
**_I want to know right now what will it be._**

I know that we can't know what will be; the future is not ours – just the present.  I would like to know that we would face it together as husband and wife to the world.

  
**_I don't want to wait for our lives to be over,_**

We're not as young as we used to be, and these are dangerous times.  I'm tired of waiting.

  
**_Will it be yes or will it be sorry?  
  
_**

I'm tired of "what ifs" and "maybes", I don't want to wait for "later" or the "future".  More then anything, I don't want to be sorry any more.

  
**_You look at me from across the room  
You're wearing your anguish again  
Believe me I know the feeling  
It sucks you into the jaws of anger._**  
**_So breathe a little more deeply my love  
All we have is this very moment_**

All we have is this very moment – the past is gone and the future is uncertain, its not guaranteed.  I don't want to keep hiding everything, to keep planning for some point in the future when we can tell our secret and let our friends know the truth of our relationship once and for all.

I'm going to do it, take a deep breath, and take my courage in my hands and scream from the top of the astronomy tower that I am in love with Albus Dumbledore.

  
**_And I don't want to do what his father,  
and his father, and his father did,_**

I don't want to think about protection, or safety.  What is right and what is wrong?  That's all anyone is Albus' family has ever thought about, has ever considered important.  It is important, I agree, but what about love and happiness?  What about the truth?

  
**_I want to be here now.  
  
_**

I want to live for the moment… stop thinking of the future and live in the here and now.  That's all we can do, treat each day as a new day, a day to be lived.  Live it to its full potential – carpe diem as they say.  

  
**_So open up your morning light,  
And say a little prayer for I_**

That's all we can do, treat each day as a new day, a day to be lived.  Live it to its full potential – carpe diem as they say.  Sure we can pray for safety for something to happen to make us safer but we can't stop in the mean time we have to live our lives regardless of what happens.  

For if we give up living, let life pass us by, we may as well just give up and let Voldemort win.  The worst thing we could do would be too let fear paralyse us.  That's what the death eaters set out to do and is almost as bad as handing them victory on a plate.

  
**_You know that if we are to stay alive,  
Then see the love in every eye._**

It's like that muggle band once sang: "All you need is love"

I think they got it right, I think that is all we need.  And if we stay together our love will see us through no matter what happens, no matter the consequences.

**_I don't want to wait for our lives to be over,_**

I don't want to wait, I think I've waited for long enough and have earned the right to have what I want now, not in ten minutes, ten hours, ten days, ten months, or even ten years when it might just be a bit of a safer situation.  I don't care if puts me in danger.  I want the world to know and I want to tell everyone, right now.

That would be exciting wouldn't it?  I walk into my next class (fourth year Gryffindor's and Slytherins) and instead of 

"Today class we will be turning pumpkins into pillows" 

I do something a little different.

"Today children I'm going to tell you all about my relationship with the Headmaster – he is my husband and I have been in love with him for more years then I can count!"

Certainly cause a stir, wouldn't it?

  
**_I want to know right now what will it be._**

Isn't that what everyone wants?  To know what is going to happen to be able to plan for the future and know that nothing will happen to stop things going according to plan.

  
**_I don't want to wait for our lives to be over,_**

One of these days our life together is going to be over and if we continue the way we are at the moment we will never get to share our joy with anyone else.  

I don't want to die with no one knowing that I loved you.  I want to scream it from the top of the astronomy tower, that I love you.  I want to sit there in full view at our grandson's university graduation, not like when he left Hogwarts and I had to sit with the staff at the leaving feast not the family, I am a proud mother and Grandmother and I want everyone to know.  

I don't want to wait for this war to be over.  I don't want to miss out on more of life then I already have.  So please, Albus, let's end this charade.

I love you and I always have.

Will it be yes or will it be sorry?  
  



End file.
